James Walker: Restitution? The big surprise

Published 8:58 am, Sunday, May 7, 2017

As a journalist, you never know where an issue you’re writing about will lead you, and sometimes as the subject is researched, you get a big surprise.

I guess like many people, there are things about our laws I just don’t understand.

For example, as an editor, nearly every day I get a press release or a reporter’s story about another man or woman being sentenced for one crime or another.

The crimes run the gamut, from murder to theft, to drug dealing to ripping off homeowners to scams against the elderly and a whole lot more, such as passing a bad check.

You name a crime and someone out there is committing it.

Guns and violence and the trials that follow may grab the headlines, but the Register’s crime blotter also shows there are a whole lot of people suspected of having with their fingers in the cookie jar.

In most cases for those caught and found guilty, it is almost inevitable during sentencing the judge will order restitution to the victim — whether that is a person, business or municipality.

Because of the high volume of press releases I receive where people convicted are either unemployed or were earning somewhere between $20,000 to $40,000 annually when arrested — and in some cases have stolen tens of thousands of dollars — it got me thinking: How do people who steal thousands of dollars beyond their ability to repay and are now unemployed make restitution to their victims?

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James Walker: Restitution? The big surprise

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Well, it’s not the $64,000 question.

Under this scenario, the answer is simple — they don’t.

For a lot of these criminals, crime pays off — at least as far as the spoils from their crimes are concerned.

They may have been tried, convicted and agreed as part of their sentence — in many cases to avoid jail time — to repay what they took, but court-ordered restitution is repaid during the course of the probationary period.

That can range from one year to 10 years for certain crimes.

But unless they hit the lottery or come into a chunk of money in some other way, most of their victims will never see a dime.

Some of these thefts are of taxpayers dollars that we will never get back.

I am not standing in judgement of what these people did. I’ve written before that the cost of living for the average Joe or Jane could be swaying them to make bad choices as many of those convicted were employed at the time of their arrest and also first-time offenders.

But why does the debt to the victim go away once the probationary period is over and all conditions haven’t been met? Isn’t that “getting away with it?”

I might feel differently if the money in these cases went toward life-saving medical treatment or something equally significant.

But in the vast majority of cases, the money stolen went for the fun stuff like family trips, big screen TVs, cars, clothing and jewelry.

Just like companies, people make their own risk assessments of what the consequences of their actions will be.

But getting people to repay money they’ve stolen or make restitution for property they damaged — whether during the course of a criminal act or not — is a major problem across the United States that has judges frustrated and victims fuming.

Some people wait 10 years and longer and still don’t see a penny.

But that’s across the United States — not here in Connecticut — and that’s the big surprise I found while researching this column.

In a state that can’t budget its way out of crisis, Connecticut has found a way to collect nearly 90 percent of court-ordered restitution, according to Gary Roberge, acting executive director of court support services for the judicial branch.